Duke Law & Technology Review

Since its inception, litigation finance has steadily grown in prevalence and popularity in the United States. While many scholars have examined its merits, few have considered litigation finance specifically in the context of copyright law. This is most unfortunate, for there, a vicious cycle has taken hold: high litigation costs discourage many market participants from taking cases to trial or summary judgment in order to vindicate their legal rights, even when they have strong cases. Thus, parties settle almost every case, which in turn prevents resolution of longstanding precedential questions in critical areas of copyright law. The legal uncertainty resulting ...

William K. Ford

Courts have long struggled with how to balance false association claims brought under the Lanham Act with the protections for speech under the First Amendment. The leading approach is the Rogers test, but this test comes in multiple forms with varying degrees of protection for speech. A substantial portion of the litigation raising this issue now involves video games, a medium that more so than others, likely needs the benefit of a clear rule that protects speech. The original version of the test is the simplest and the one most protective of speech. In 2013, the Ninth Circuit endorsed the ...

Diamond Justice—Teaching Baseball And The Law, Edmund P. Edmonds

Edmund P. Edmonds

Authors Louis H. Schiff and Robert M. Jarvis set out to fill a void in the vast array of legal teaching materials by creating Baseball and the Law: Cases and Materials, the first casebook to concentrate on “The National Pastime.” Their goal was to create a casebook that would propel the expansion of teaching law and baseball courses in law schools. By pulling together appropriate cases and primary reading material with detailed and carefully crafted notes, the authors have admirably completed this task with over 1000 pages of text to allow faculty and students in the legal academy a resource ...

Jessica Michelle Ciminero

A Long-Awaited Reboot: The Fifa Scandal And Its Repercussions For Football’S Governing Body, Matthew B. Dicenso

Boston College International and Comparative Law Review

On May 21, 2015, Swiss authorities raided the annual congressional meeting of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, ultimately arresting seven FIFA executives on charges of corruption. The product of a three-year Federal Bureau of Investigation case, the Swiss raid and accompanying Department of Justice indictment was the first step in addressing what authorities describe as enduring and systemic corruption within football’s governing body. In addition to casting a shadow over the world’s most beloved sport, the FIFA scandal highlighted the international organization’s lack of accountability and, most notably, its dire need for change. Although the February ...

Boston College Journal of Law & Social Justice

The number of students, in grades kindergarten through high school, who identify as transgender has steadily increased during the last decade. These students seek the same opportunities as their cisgender peers, but are often denied participation in athletic activities because of their non-conforming gender-behavior. Currently, there is no federal law governing transgender participation in sports, which has resulted in an inconsistency among state athletic associations’ participation policies; the vast majority of states restricts participation. These states are limiting transgender students’ ability to receive the benefits that sports provide. To solve this inconsistency and provide equal opportunity for transgender students, this ...

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

Given the recent importance that sport organizations, academics, and the public have placed on environmental sustainability this Article introduces the study of ecological economics—founded upon Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen’s application of thermodynamics to economics—to legal perspectives on public financing. The authors argue that the economic growth limits implied by thermodynamic principles should be incorporated in the public financing of sport stadiums. More specifically, municipalities can require facilities receiving public financing to produce environmental cost accounting reports and to make them publically available.

The Puzzle Of Deflategate: Private Agreements And The Possibility Of Biased Justice, Alfred C. Yen

Alfred C. Yen

In this Article, I study the implications of National Football League Management Council v. National Football League Players Association, the recent decision in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit dealt New England Patriots star quarterback Tom Brady a stinging defeat in his so-called "Deflategate" case against the National Football League ("NFL"). I do so because, although most of the court's opinion follows well-established doctrine, a crucial portion of decision quickly glosses over important unanswered questions about federal arbitration law and the enforceability of pre-dispute arbitration agreements that contemplate the appointment of an evidently partial ...